Climatologist Dr. David Legates tells the U.S. Senate of ‘the silencing of the dissenters’: ‘Young scientists quickly learn to ‘do what is expected of them’ or at least remain quiet, lest they lose their career before it begins’
By David R. Legates, Ph.D., C.C.M. – University of Delaware
I am a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware and I served as the Delaware State Climatologist from 2005 to 2011. I also am an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics & Statistics and the Physical Ocean Science and Engineering Program. I received a B.A. in Mathematics and Geography, a M.S. in Geography, and a Ph.D. in Climatology, all from the University of Delaware. I served on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma and Louisiana State University before returning to the University of Delaware in 1999. I was part of the US delegation that negotiated a protocol for the first climate data exchange program with the Soviet Union in 1990. I am recognized as a Certified Consulting Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society and was the recipient of the 2002 Boeing Autometric Award in Image Analysis and Interpretation by the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Excerpted from Legates testimony: (Full testimony here)
The Silencing of the Dissenters
In my Senate Testimony in 2003 regarding the so-called “Hockey Stick” graph of global air temperature (Legates 2003), I concluded with the statement I’m sorry that a discussion that is best conducted among scientists has made its way to a United States Senate committee. But hopefully it has become evident that a healthy scientific debate is being compromised and that only by bringing this discussion into the light can it be properly addressed.
At that time, an attack had been made on the scientific process. Editors at two journals were harassed to the extent that an abrogation of their commitment to reviewer confidentiality had been demanded of them. One of the journals, Climate Research, was threatened with an organized boycott and the Director of its parent organization, who first evaluated the situation and exonerated the managing editor, recanted in the face of this boycott. The newly appointed Senior Editor had moved to bar two scientists from future publication in Climate Research – without a hearing and without even an accusation of fraud or plagiarism.
I would like to provide you with an update on how the state of science has progressed in the intervening eleven years as it regards climate change. In 2009, a release of documents from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom (known colloquially as ‘ClimateGate’) shed light …
Forty-One Senators Push For Repeal Of Obama’s EPA Cap-And-Trade Rule
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/04/forty-one-senators-push-for-repeal-of-obamas-cap-and-trade-rule/…
‘New Video Turns Up the Heat on GOP Climate Deniers’
http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/04/video-gop-climate-change-deniers/…
Global Temperature Update: Still no global warming for 17 years 9 months – Since Sept. 1996
Global Temperature Update
Still no global warming for 17 years 9 months
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley – Special to Climate Depot
According to the RSS satellite data, whose value for May 2014 has just been published, the global warming trend in the 17 years 9 years since September 1996 is zero (Fig. 1). The 213 months without global warming represent more than half the 425-month satellite data record since January 1979. No one now in high school has lived through global warming.
Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to May 2014, showing no trend for 17 years 9 months.
The hiatus period of 17 years 9 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a zero trend. But the length of the pause in global warming, significant though it now is, is of less importance than the ever-growing discrepancy between the temperature trends predicted by models and the less exciting real-world temperature change that has been observed.
The First Assessment Report predicted that global temperature would rise by 1.0 [0.7, 1.5] Cº to 2025, equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] Cº century–1. The executive summary asked, “How much confidence do we have in our predictions?” IPCC pointed out some uncertainties (clouds, oceans, etc.), but concluded:
“Nevertheless, … we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad-scale features of climate change. … There are similarities between results from the coupled models using simple representations of the ocean and those using more sophisticated descriptions, and our understanding of such differences as do occur gives us some confidence in the results.”
That “substantial confidence” was substantial over-confidence. A quarter of a century after 1990, the outturn to date – expressed as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies – is 0.34 Cº, equivalent to juar 1.4 Cº/century, or exactly half of the central estimate in IPCC (1990) and well below even the least estimate (Fig. 2).
Figure 2. Medium-term global temperature projections from IPCC (1990), January 1990 to April 2014 (orange region and red trend line), vs. observed anomalies (dark blue) and trend (bright blue) as the mean of the RSS and UAH monthly satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
Figure 3. Predicted temperature change since …
Analysis: skeptical ‘hedge’ wording creeping into newspaper articles
…Nonconsensus: ‘The society has actually asked its members what they think. What a refreshing contrast to the learned societies in the UK, whose politically inclined leaderships are happy to issue statements in the names of their members without batting an eyelid’
Nonconsensus
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/6/4/nonconsensus.html
An interesting headline in the Australian – paywalled, so I can’t see the rest of the article:
AUSTRALIA’S peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue.
After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve.
This is very interesting, because it suggests that the society has actually asked its members what they think. What a refreshing contrast to the learned societies in the UK, whose politically inclined leaderships are happy to issue statements in the names of their members without batting an eyelid.…
Antarctic Sea Ice Growth Continues To Blow Away Records: ‘Highest level since measurements began in 1979’ – ‘10.3% above 1981-2010 climatological avg’
Antarctic Sea Ice Continues To Blow Away Records
By Paul Homewood
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Antarctic sea ice has set a new record for May, with extent at the highest level since measurements began in 1979. At the end of the month, it expanded to 12.965 million sq km, beating the previous record of 12.722 million sq km set in 2010. This year’s figure is 10.3% above the 1981-2010 climatological average of 11.749 million sq km.
The lowest extent on record was 10.208 million sq km in 1986.
It is a similar story for the average monthly extent, below.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html
Ice extent has been consistently and continuously well above climatological norms for the last 12 months.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/
HH Lamb
It is worth not what Hubert Lamb had to say about Antarctic sea ice in the 19thC, in his book “Climate, History and The Modern World”, (page 257):
Expanding sea ice coincided with a colder climate, and not a warmer one.
Global Sea Ice
Finally, let’s take a look at global sea ice area, which has been running above average for most of this year.
No, Gwyneth Paltrow, That’s Not How Physical Reality Works: You cannot emotionally injure water (seriously)
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/06/thats-not-how-physical-reality-works-gwyneth.html…
The War On Coal Is Already Over, Mr. President — coal lost..’They drilled, baby, and it worked: massive shale exploration produced a 65% drop in natural-gas prices since 2005 that is wiping out coal’s few remaining growth prospects’
The War On Coal Is Already Over, Mr. President
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-war-on-coal-is-already-over-mr-president/
The war on coal already happened — coal lost. And for a reason that should make conservatives happy: They drilled, baby, and it worked: massive shale exploration produced a 65% drop in natural-gas prices since 2005 that is wiping out coal’s few remaining growth prospects.
The Environmental Protection Agency today will announce new climate-change rules clamping down on emissions from electricity plants. The usual lobbyists and politicians are already braying about Barack Obama’s “war on coal” — liberal, Harvard, lacks-chest-hair/isn’t-a-real-American stuff emanating from a Washington every bit as gaseous as the one portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” now in heavy rotation on cable.
But the war on coal already happened — coal lost. And for a reason that should make conservatives happy: They drilled, baby, and it worked, beginning years before Sarah Palin popularized “drill baby drill” in 2008. Massive new exploration of shale formations after 2002 produced a 65% drop in natural-gas prices since 2005 that, with or without Obama’s caps on utilities’ carbon emissions, is wiping out coal’s few remaining growth prospects.
To understand the economics of U.S. climate and coal policy, begin with three facts. About 85% of U.S. coal goes into electricity, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Electricity demand is expected to grow just 0.9% annually through 2040, according to the Energy Information Administration. And the falling price of gas, coupled with existing rules to limit power plants’ mercury emissions, mean coal will be more expensive than gas as well as dirtier. And that’s before new carbon limits raise coal’s effective price again.
That’s why utilities began shifting from coal by 2004, according to the EIA. In the past decade, coal’s share of electricity production fell to 40% from 50%. Natural gas gained 9 points and now commands 27% of the market, and the share of renewables like solar and wind has tripled to 6.2%.
This happened before the first broad federal limits on carbon from existing power plants — expected to be some variation of flexible cap-and-trade standards Republicans proposed in the 1980s but oppose now — are even introduced for public comment. They’ll take years to implement.
“If you have less demand and you have a cheaper fuel source, you don’t have to run the coal plants as often,” Morningstar utilities analyst Travis Miller says. A bonus: Carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants dropped 10% …
Earth Scientists Split On Climate Statement: ‘Unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue’
Earth Scientists Split On Climate Change Statement
http://www.thegwpf.org/earth-scientists-split-on-climate-change-statement/
Australia’s peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue.
After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve.
Mr Hutton said the issue “had the potential to be too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole.”
The backdown, published in the GSA quarterly newsletter, is the culmination of two rejected position statements and years of furious correspondence among members. Some members believe the failure to make a strong statement on climate change is an embarrassment that puts Australian earth scientists at odds with their international peers.
It undermines the often cited stance that there is near unanimity among climate scientists on the issue.
GSA represents more than 2000 Australian earth scientists from academe, industry, government and research organisations. […]
In a short statement published in the latest edition of the society newsletter, Mr Hutton says: “After a long and extensive and extended consultation with society members, the GSC executive committee has decided not to proceed with a climate change position statement.’’
“As evidenced by recent letters to the editor … society members have diverse opinions on the human impact on climate change. However, diversity of opinion can also be divisive, especially when such views are strongly held.
“The executive committee has therefore concluded that a climate change position statement has the potential to be far too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole ,” the statement says.
Full story…